


as the world falls down

by hi_raeth



Series: reblog (mini fics + prompt fills) [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, and all rey can do is hold him, just your average post-tlj force bond fic, where ben is drowning in guilt and pain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-17
Updated: 2018-06-17
Packaged: 2019-05-24 14:19:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14956254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hi_raeth/pseuds/hi_raeth
Summary: Freed from Snoke’s influence, Kylo Ren finds himself drowning in actual human emotions now that he’s no longer turning them into rage and hatred. Halfway across the galaxy, Rey is drowning right with him.





	as the world falls down

**Author's Note:**

> [So a lovely anon over on Tumblr sent me a Labyrinth-themed prompt](https://eleanor-writes-stuff.tumblr.com/post/174632142255/could-you-please-do-a-reylo-one-shot-based-off-the), and I thought to myself, _well, this should be a piece of cake_. After all, Labyrinth is one of my all-time favorite movies, Reylo is one of my all-time favorite ships - combining these two things should've been easy, natural even.
> 
> I was, as I often am, so very wrong. And on that note, go forth and read!
> 
> Title taken from David Bowie's _As the World Falls Down_.

In the days following Crait, Rey sometimes finds herself dizzy with fear, breathless with pain, completely and utterly overwhelmed by regret and despair and a sense of loss greater than she’s ever known.

The fear she can understand –there’s no denying that everyone’s some degree of scared, even the General. Force-sensitive as she is, cramped together in the Falcon as they all are, there’s no hiding herself away from the overwhelming sense of despair and terror that hangs in the air, seeps into her skin and bones and thoughts.

The pain is a little more confusing – what wounds she had suffered aboard the Supremacy have long since been healed, whether by time, bacta, or her clumsy attempts at Force healing guided only by an approximate translation of Master Skywalker’s Jedi texts that’s more guesswork than knowledge-based. But the galaxy – the Force itself, maybe – is wounded, crying and bleeding and dying, and so Rey convinces herself it’s the galaxy’s collective pain that occasionally leaves her winded.

But the rest of it… the rest of it Rey cannot make sense of, doesn’t  _want_ to acknowledge or understand or accept. There is no place for regret, not when she’d done everything right and  _he_ was the one who ruined it all. There’s no use for despair, not when there’s nothing to be done, to be changed or fixed or saved. And that all-consuming sense of loss… that can’t be hers, can’t be for him, can’t be anything other than the Force mourning for the galaxy.

Or so she tells herself, until she’s pulled into _his_  fragmented nightmares: glimpses of the past, of a toddler screaming at the monster in his head, the monster his parents won’t find under the bed or in the closet, the monster his parents can’t see or fight or protect him from; a constant loop of pain and death and destruction, of fire and screams and bodies, faces both familiar and not frozen in eternal masks of horror; Han gasping his last dying breath, Leia being ripped into the vacuum of space,  _her_ crying and shaking and begging him to please,  _please don’t go this way–_

The lightsaber explodes into a thousand little pieces, and Rey wakes with a gasp, with a name on her lips and an undeniable revelation pushing its way to the forefront of her mind.

The pain, the regret, all of it – it’s  _his_.

And he’s drowning in it.

 

* * *

 

It takes another week before she feels the tell-tale prickling of her skin, the unbearable silence that leaves her ears ringing. The Resistance has settled into a new base by now, and she’s in her bunk when it finally happens, when all of the pain coalesces to form its source.

“ _Rey_ ,” he breathes, and she recognizes the plea for what it is by the hitch in his voice, by the shadows in his eyes. The pain –  _his_ pain – leaves her winded all over again, and the anger she’d held like a weapon poised to strike vanishes into thin air.

She doesn’t know what to call him anymore, so instead Rey lunges towards the foot of her bed and barrels into him, pulls him down to his knees and tucks his head under her chin with a broken sob he echoes. The first time they touched she was blinded by a glimpse of the future; now she’s swept up in a storm of distorted memories, of confusion and emptiness and–

“I don’t understand how I got here,” he confesses into her neck, arms wrapped around her waist like she’s the only thing anchoring him in this galaxy. “Before, with Snoke, I thought I knew what I wanted. I thought I knew who I was. But now… now nothing makes sense anymore.”

It’s everything she wanted to hear the day she delivered herself to Kylo Ren, the day she vowed Ben Solo would turn. “Ben…” she says quietly, runs her hand through his hair and pulls away just enough to see him.

“I killed my father, Rey. I killed my father and I almost killed my mother, and when Snoke was around I knew why I did it but now there’s only pain and regret and all this  _grief_ I can’t turn into hatred or anger anymore.”

Quietly, tentatively, she asks, “Do you  _want_ to? Do you want more hatred and anger?”

And Ben’s face, it… crumples, the way the shifting dunes of Jakku would sometimes just collapse with no warning. “I don’t know what I want,” he tells her, a pained confession. “Not anymore, not without...”

She rests one hand at the nape of his neck, caresses his bare skin with her fingers, and –  _the deed split your spirit to the bone_ , Snoke sneers, but even as he punishes Kylo he takes some of that pain away, just enough to keep his protégé from truly falling apart.

Now he’s gone and all that pain – all of the pain Snoke had taken away over the years, all of the pain Ben was never allowed to feel – has found its way back to the source, to the giant, gaping wound that is Ben’s heart.

Ben falls into her, presses trembling lips to her neck and hides warm tears in her skin, and shows her in images and feelings what he can’t give voice to: the way his world is falling apart, the way he doesn’t know who he is anymore, the way his life doesn’t make sense without Snoke and he  _hates_ it, hates that his master has such power over him even in death, hates that he’s trapped in this existence Snoke carved out for him, a life he doesn’t want anymore, a life he never wanted in the first place.

He’s still the Supreme Leader. The galaxy is still in chaos.And this, this might not mean or change anything, not after everything he’s done, not with everything he might still do. But for now he’s here –  _Ben_ ’s here – and he’s broken and hurting and–

They can figure out who he is and what he wants tomorrow.

For now, Rey holds him close, sinks to the ground with him and murmurs into his hair, “I’m here for you,” and Ben, Ben just clings to her as his world falls apart.

 

* * *

 

_as the pain sweeps through  
__makes no sense for you_  
_every thrill is gone_  
_wasn’t too much fun at all_  
_but I’ll be there for you_  
_as the world falls down_

**Author's Note:**

> So. I spent forever trying to come up with something, and landed on a post-TLJ idea because, well... I really need to practice writing these two in canon. All of the AUs I've been writing might've permanently messed up my ability to write them in character. Please send help.
> 
> I’m not at all happy with how this turned out, but if we waited for me to post something I’m actually happy with, y’all would never hear from me again.
> 
> As always, thank you for reading and please don't hesitate to comment/reach out because I love hearing from you guys.


End file.
